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City of Glendale Designates April 2015 As “Armenian Genocide Commemoration Month”

GLENDALE – The Glendale City Council Tuesday presented a proclamation designating the Month of April 2015 as “Armenian Genocide Commemoration Month.” Mayor Zareh Sinanyan presented the proclamation during the regular session of the City Council to representatives of the Armenian-Genocide Centennial Committee of Western United States.

The Glendale City Council also unanimously passed a Resolution designating April 2015 as the “Month of Commemoration of Centennial Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide”; and Taking Actions Necessary to Ensure the City and its Institutions Including Schools, Libraries and Publicly Owned Museums Properly Commemorate, Inform and Provide Education About the Genocide.

Below is the text of the Resolution:

RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF GLENDALE DESIGNATING APRIL 2015 AS THE “MONTH OF COMMEMORATION OF THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”; AND TAKING ACTIONSNECESSARY TO ENSURE THE CITY AND ITS INSTITUTIONS INCLUDING SCHOOLS, LIBRARIES AND PUBLICLY OWNED MUSEUMS PROPERLY COMMEMORATE, INFORM AND PROVIDE EDUCATION ABOUT THE GENOCIDE

WHEREAS, the Armenian people were subjects of a systematic and premeditated Genocidal campaign which began on April 24, 1915, at the hands of the Young Turk Government of the Ottoman Empire from 1915-1919, and which continued at the hands of the Kemalist Movement of Turkey from 1920-1923 whereby over 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children were slaughtered or marched to their deaths in an effort to annihilate the Armenian Nation in the First modem Genocide of the 20th century, while thousands of surviving Armenian women and children were forcibly converted and Islamized, and hundreds of thousands more were subjected to ethnic cleansing during the period of the modern Republic of Turkey from 1924-1937; and

WHEREAS, during the genocides of the Christians living in the Ottoman Empire and surrounding regions which occurred during the first half of the 20th Century, hundreds of thousands of Assyrians, Greeks and other Christians, lost their lives at the hands of the Ottoman Turkish Empire and the Republic of Turkey, and
WHEREAS, these crimes against humanity also had the consequence of permanently removing all traces of the Armenians and other targeted people from their historic homelands of more than four millennia, and enriching the perpetrators with the lands and other property of the victims of these crimes, including the usurpation of several thousand churches; and

WHEREAS, in response to the Genocide and at the behest of the President Woodrow Wilson and the U.S. State Department, the Near East Relief organization was founded, and became the first Congressionally-sanctioned American philanthropic effort created exclusively to provide humanitarian assistance and to rescue the Armenian Nation and other Christian minorities from annihilation, who went on to survive and thrive outside of their ancestral homeland all over the world and specifically in the State of California; and

WHEREAS, the planning and implementation of Genocide is indisputably recognized in international law as a Crime Against Humanity and is punishable as such, yet has remained unpunished for nearly one hundred years, as the government of Turkey is allowed with impunity to distort history and to deny the Genocide and its consequences perpetrated both by its Ottoman predecessor and its subsequent regimes despite international recognition of the Armenian Genocide by 23 countries, including the United States of America; and

WHEREAS, the Republic of Turkey inexplicably and adamantly has denied the occurrence of the crimes against humanity committed by the Ottoman and Young Turk rulers for many years, and continues to do so a full century since the first crimes constituting genocide occurred despite the Turkish governments’ earlier admissions and the overwhelming proof of genocidal intent; and

WHEREAS, the Republic of Turkey has escalated its international campaign of Genocide denial; it maintains its illegal blockade of humanitarian aid to the Republic of Armenia, and steadily increases its pressure on any movement in Turkey acknowledging the Armenian Genocide and seeking justice for its victims and other persecuted indigenous minorities; and WHEREAS, this resolution declares that the Glendale City Council deplores the persistent, ongoing efforts by any person, in this country or abroad, to deny the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide and its related atrocities; and WHEREAS, every person should be made aware of and educated about the Armenian Genocide and other crimes against humanity, and know that April 24, 1915 is globally recognized as the commencement of the Armenian Genocide and that 2015 marks the centennial anniversary since its commencement.

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF GLENDALE AS FOLLOWS:

1. That April 2015 is hereby designated as the “City of Glendale Month of Commemoration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923”, in order to ensure that the Armenian Genocide is properly commemorated and taught to the community at large, to the schools, their faculty and student body, and to visitors to Glendale through educational and cultural events.

2. That the Glendale City Council hereby commends the extraordinary service which was delivered by Near East Relief to the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and Assyrian Genocide, including thousands of direct beneficiaries of American philanthropy who are the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents of many Californian residents, and the City Council reaffirms its commitment to working with community groups, nonprofit organizations, City personnel, and the Glendale Unified School District to host campus wide educational events dedicated specifically to these efforts as an important part of American history.

3. That the Glendale City Council calls upon the President of the United States to work toward equitable, constructive, stable, and durable Armenian-Turkish relations based upon the Republic of Turkey’s full acknowledgment of the facts and ongoing consequences of the Armenian Genocide, and toward a fair, just, and comprehensive international resolution of this crime against humanity, including reparations to the Armenian nation.

4. That the Glendale City Council transmit copies of this Resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, to each United States Senator and Member of Congress from California, to the Governor of California, and every member of the California State Legislature, to the California State Superintendent of Instruction, and to the Turkish Ambassador to the United States.